‘A Great Accomplishment’

The Southwestern Central School District has been recognized by the New York State Education Department as a “Reward School” for the 2013-14 school year.

At last week’s meeting of the district’s Board of Education, the board presented Mike Cipolla, Southwestern Senior High School principal, with an award from the Education Department dated for the month of August.

The Reward School designation is bestowed upon school districts that have made the most progress, or have the highest achievement in the state, with no significant gaps in student achievement. The award recognizes the high school as “leading New York state toward the accomplishment of educational excellence through an increase in student achievement and closing the gap in student performance.”

Also during the meeting, the board approved the district into an agreement with Frewsburg Central School to combine boys’ swimming for the 2014 school year. Donahue said this is a new agreement that is still being worked out.

“We’re moving forward to negotiate it,” she said.

Other business included several personnel changes. Resigning from non-instructional positions of senior class adviser and sophomore class adviser were, respectively, Molly Moore and Carrie Gould. Brianne Katilus also resigned from the instructional position of long-term substitute for Kay Sirianni, effective as of Aug. 29.

Appointments included Casey Leenders, who is initially certified in English 7-12, to a non-probationary position of long-term substitute to replace Katilus. The appointment commenced Sept. 5 and will expire on Feb. 13, 2014. Other instructional substitutes for the 2013-14 school year included Rita Browning, Jonathan DeSantis, Sarah Peterson and Jonathan Weston – all of whom are certified.

Leslie Charles, Mary Anne Loverme and Michelle Salisbury were approved as volunteers at the elementary school for the 2013-14 school year, effective as of Wednesday.